Final Project: Mean Girls

Mean Girls from Natasha Alden on Vimeo.

Here is my final project.  Im really happy with the way it looks.  The princesses are battling it in the SKY on the volleyball court, they have swapped clothes with their princes and are now "mean" girls.  Until they get an unexpected visit.

Final Project Treatment

**Mean Girls**

This idea was really not hard for me to come up with.  I have played Volleyball for 10 years now and love the sport, so I figured doing animated project involving beach volleyball would be fun.  I didn’t just want to have some athletes on the court hitting the ball back and forth; instead, I thought it would be unique if it were princesses.  Since I love Disney I really think it would be fun to use the Disney princesses (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and Ariel) as the athletes but with a little twist.  The princesses will rival against each other on the court and give a "mean girls" attitude towards each other.  I am thinking I will have their princes cheering for them on the sidelines on the sideline as cheerleaders.

I plan on rotoscoping images of the princesses and animated them accordingly to the actions they are doing.  Like spiking a ball down, while jumping high above the net.  I am going to use a lot of close ups to express anger in their faces, and many shots will have the camera following the ball.  For the background I am going to take pictures of the volleyball courts at Captain Bills from all angles needed, and put textures in using Photoshop.  I am hoping to make the background 3D but have the characters in 2D.  I imagine a lot of parenting will be going with the princess actions, and also the volleyball (since it will be spinning and moving through air)

At the end a monster is going to appear, which scares the players and the crowd, showing that the princesses are not "all that."  I plan on drawing the giant monster myself, so I can give it a truly unique feel.  The monster is going to bounce the ball, which accidently squishes all the players.  This will be the twist and comedic ending.

I want the starting image to be a high angle/overhead shot of the volleyball court with the players on each side.  And have an announcer’s voice giving the score.   It is hard to say right now what order the shots will come in but Side and back views are crucial to show the characters playing volleyball.  When the ball hits snow white in the head the camera will be following the ball until it makes contact with Snow white.   I will create a shadow of the monster over the court using Photoshop and some fun textures.  There will be a low angle shot of the monster too give it a point of view look as well as a dominated look.  The final scene will end with the same establishing shot as the beginning.

All of the voices will be recorded with some help from my friends and me, and I may create the monsters voice in garage band (but that is hard to say this far in advance.) I anticipate this project to be difficult and challenging, but I think everyone will really enjoy the end product.  I imagine this to be 2 minutes of more; if that is the case I may make it a longer project and continue to work on it throughout the spring semester.

Production Schedule

October 25 - Begin compiling images of Volleyball Court, Princesses and princes, and begin hand drawing monster
November 1 - Compile images for background, Rotoscope characters
November 8 - Start animate characters movements, as well as camera movements around the court
November 15 - Continue animation,  record voice overs for dialogue
November 22 - Add in dialogue, animate "ball stomping scene"
November 29 - Finishing touch ups

Storyboad for Final Project

Final Bumper

This is my End of Semester bumper.  I hand drew everything besides the background and placed it into aftereffects

Progress

Sadly, My images dont have any drastic changes.